The critical consensus wasn’t too kind to Marc Abraham’s I Saw the Light, only the second film directed by the veteran producer (Thirteen Days, Children of Men), but count me on the side of those who did like it.

The film, an early Oscar favorite last year, was pulled from distribution after its lackluster showing at the Toronto Film Festival keeping Tom Hiddleston (Only Lovers Left Alive) from an anticipated Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of legendary country singer Hank Williams. While the structure of the film may leave a lot to be desired, Hiddleston’s performance does not. Having spent five months living with country singer/composer Rodney Crowell and learning how to sing in Williams’ style, play guitar, and yodel with the best of them, Hiddleston gave a performance that outshines any other portrayal of a country singer I’ve seen aside from Sissy Spacek and Beverly D’Angelo’s interpretations of Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline in Coal Miner’s Daughter and that’s high praise indeed. In fact, had the film been released last year, Hiddleston would have been my easy pick as the year’s best actor.

The life story of the singer who died in his sleep on the way to a New Year’s concert on January 1, 1953 at 29, was first filmed in 1964 as Your Cheatin’ Heart with George Hamilton as Williams and Susan Oliver in a sugar-coated portrayal of his first wife who controlled his estate at the time. His second wife and another lover, the mother of his daughter, were omitted from that version. The new film concentrates on that troubled marriage, but extends the narrative to include his key relationships with the other two women.

Two key scenes that would have made the narrative even stronger were left on the cutting room floor, along with nine other scenes, all of which are included as extras exclusive to Sony’s Blu-ray release of the film.

The first of those scenes is an awkward backstage encounter between Williams and his estranged father. The second dramatizes the meeting that led to the legal agreement made between Williams and his pregnant former girlfriend in which his mother agreed to take care of the child for the first two years after her birth. Missing altogether is a coda in which the audience could be let in on what happened to the other characters after Williams’ death. His first wife and his mother conspired to have Williams’ second marriage annulled on a technicality so that they could control his estate. The second wife had married him before her divorce from her first husband was finalized, but so did the first wife whose marriage could have been nullified for the same reason. His mother fulfilled the legal agreement made with the pregnant girlfriend, raising the child, a daughter, for her first two years and then gave her up for adoption.

Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) shares star billing with Hiddleston as his first wife, but Hiddleston so dominates the film that Olsen, along with all the other players, including Cherry Jones as his controlling mother, is really a supporting player as well.

The only other drawback for me is that the film’s narrative played Williams as strictly a country singer whereas his popularity and influence reached far beyond the confines of the genre.

I Saw the Light is also available on DVD without the Blu-ray exclusive deleted scenes.

Kino Lorber has released a 42nd Anniversary edition of 1974’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three on both Blu-ray and DVD, previously released in both formats in bare bones editions by MGM Home Video. The new release with commentary by Film Programmer/Historian Jim Healy and his brother, Actor/Filmmaker Tom Healy; and on-screen interviews with actor Hector Elizondo, composer David Shire, and editor Jerry Greenberg, does full justice to the film that is quite correctly recalled as the quintessential New York film of the 1970s. Only 1969’s Midnight Cowboy and 1976’s Taxi Driver captured the grit and grime of the city as clearly in the years before its Disneyfication.

New York in the early 1970s was a city on edge with crime at an all-time high, but even so, the hijacking of a subway train seemed pretty far-fetched. Time, of course, has proven it a realistic prediction of the terrible things in the world to come. Walter Matthau, in arguably his best dramatic role, is the easy-going transit detective who proves to be more than a match for the four hijackers – Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, and Earl Hindman. The final shot is a doozey.

The film, directed by Joseph Sargent (MacArthur), also features fine performances from a plethora of wonderful character actors of the period including James Broderick, Dick O’Neill, Lee Wallace, Tom Pedi, Beatrice Winde, Jerry Stiller, Kenneth McMillan, Doris Roberts, Julius Harris, and Tony Roberts.

Remade twice since, neither the 1998 TV movie with Edward James Olmos nor the 2009 theatrical release with Denzel Washington, hold a candle to it.

Kino Lorber has also released several films noir of the ‘40s and ‘50s on Blu-ray and DVD, among them, 1948’s Pitfall, 1953’s 99 River Street, and 1957’s Hidden Fear. Pitfall has been restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and features commentary by film historian Eddie Muller.

Dick Powell and Lizabeth Scott star as an insurance investigator and the femme fatale who seduces him in André De Toth’s Pitfall, but the real revelation here is third-billed Jane Wyatt as Powell’s betrayed wife in what was easily the Father Knows Best star’s best big screen performance.

Muller also provides commentary on Phil Karlson’s 99 River Street starring John Payne as a cab driver suspected of murdering his two-timing wife and Evelyn Keyes as the woman who helps him. Muller, in addition to being an expert on film noir, is also something of an expert on Keyes as he proved on his commentary for Joseph Losey’s 1951 classic The Prowler starring Keyes and Van Heflin.

Something of a letdown in comparison to those genuine classics, De Toth’s Hidden Fear, starring Payne as American cop aiding the Danish police in discovering who murdered the man his sister has been accused of killing, is nevertheless an interesting time-killer.

This week’s new releases include Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Miracles From Heaven.